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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29990784">To a Friend Who Sent Me Roses</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlgySwinburne/pseuds/AlgySwinburne'>AlgySwinburne</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sherlock (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5+1 Things, Anal Sex, Assumed Relationship, Bisexual John Watson, Blow Jobs, Declarations Of Love, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Gay Sherlock Holmes, Ignores The Final Problem, Insecure Sherlock Holmes, M/M, Morning Sex, Oblivious Sherlock Holmes, POV Sherlock Holmes, Parenthood, Pining, Post-Season/Series 04, Press and Tabloids, Summer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 18:33:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>16,146</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29990784</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlgySwinburne/pseuds/AlgySwinburne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Sherlock is mistaken for John’s partner and Rosie’s father, and one time it isn’t a mistake.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sherlock Holmes/John Watson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>521</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was inspired by a scene from <i>Schitt’s Creek</i> in which David gets mistaken for Roland’s partner after he babysits Roland’s child for the day. Naturally, my first thought was: what a delightful Johnlock fic idea. And then it snowballed into this bad boy. </p><p>The title is a very slightly modified version of the title of Keats’s sonnet, “To A Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses,” which can be read in its entirety <a href="https://poets.org/poem/friend-who-sent-me-some-roses">here.</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>1.</strong>
</p>
<p>“God, I’m fucking knackered,” John groans.</p>
<p>Sherlock makes a noise of acknowledgement in the back of his throat, doesn’t raise his eyes from his mobile.</p>
<p>“You mind watching Rosie for a tic while I grab a coffee?”</p>
<p>There’s been a spate of cat abductions in Croydon, though not quite ordinary abductions--polite abductions, if abductions can be polite, the animals returned a day after their disappearances in fine fettle, but tagged with cryptic messages: a pithy phrase or word in Arabic. Sherlock’s Arabic is rusty, but he’s been able to make a connection to the recently-discovered Saqqara tomb and is on the verge of solving the case from this very bench.</p>
<p>“<em>Sherlock</em>.”</p>
<p>Sherlock snaps his head up.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, John <em>does</em> look exhausted. Their recent case (referred to, egregiously, as the "Bermondsay Bijoux Bafflement" by John) had involved quite a few early morning stake-outs, and they're both still catching up on sleep.</p>
<p>“<em>Yes</em>, I will watch her,” Sherlock says. He flaps his hand dismissively. “Go wake up.”</p>
<p>“You want anything?”</p>
<p>“No--actually, yes. A raspberry scone, please.”</p>
<p>John nods sedately and drags his feet down the path.</p>
<p>Rosie doesn’t notice John’s departure, remains seated in her patch of grass peering studiously into her new toy, a pair of child-friendly binoculars (advertised, tweely, as “bugnoculars”), and when a breeze sweeps up, whipping her high blonde ponytail sideways in the air, she redirects the binoculars from ground to sky to watch the gently-rocking willow and ash trees, her mouth open slightly in wonder. She looks so very small and innocent, and Sherlock finds himself smiling, overcome with a fierce protectiveness and adoration.</p>
<p>And that’s all it ever takes, really.</p>
<p>Not many things in this earthly hellscape can do it.</p>
<p>A clever mystery can do it, usually. And John can do it, sometimes. But Rosie, she can always, unfailingly, do it. It only takes Rosie being Rosie, Rosie being boring, or interesting, for Sherlock to smile like a complete idiot.</p>
<p>Rosie points the binoculars down the dirt path before throwing the thing aside and shouting, “Doggy!”</p>
<p>Sherlock swivels his head.</p>
<p>A well-fed corgi is waddling its way at a snail’s pace, its owner, an old, windblown woman dressed in offensively loud colours, walking it at an equally slow shuffle.</p>
<p>Rosie shoots up to standing, bubbling with energy, ready to bolt for the dog.</p>
<p>“Not yet, Watson,” Sherlock calls out. “Let’s see if it’s a friendly animal.”</p>
<p>“But I want to….” Rosie mumbles petulantly, lips in a moue, though she does as she’s told.</p>
<p>“Look, Constance, darling, I think someone wants to play with you,” the old woman tells the corgi.</p>
<p>Being in closer proximity, Sherlock can more effectively scan the woman from head to toe, and he reads her story in her brittle hair and fingernails, in her sallow skin and cheap clothes: <em>retired, widow, lives alone, high-functioning alcoholic.</em></p>
<p>Constance has stopped her leisurely stroll to get a good look at Rosie, tongue lolling and tail wagging.</p>
<p>Rosie is looking at Sherlock with saucer-eyed, beseeching need. “Sherlah? Please?”</p>
<p>“Does your dog like to be petted?” Sherlock asks the woman.</p>
<p>“Oh, absolutely," the woman coos. "Constance positively lives for attention."</p>
<p>Rosie’s face lights up, sprinting for the dog.</p>
<p>“Be gentle,” Sherlock warns her.</p>
<p>Rosie plops onto her knees and softly places a hand to fur. Constance tumbles inelegantly onto her back, and Rosie gives the dog what she wants, strokes her stomach.</p>
<p>“She’s an angel, isn’t she?”</p>
<p>Sherlock can’t see the woman’s eyes behind her overlarge, hideous heart-shaped sunglasses, so he can’t be sure if she is once again addressing her dog or Sherlock.</p>
<p>“You know, sir, your daughter reminds me of mine when she was that age.”</p>
<p>The assumption of Sherlock’s paternity is a reasonable one.</p>
<p>Sherlock is a lone man on a park bench watching over a child. He’s statistically less likely to be a paid minder, as a man, especially at his age, and can’t possibly be a kidnapper hiding in plain sight--Rosie shows no discomfort being in his presence. So, yes, Sherlock being Rosie’s parent makes sense, and although Rosie looks nothing like him, it can be assumed that her mother’s genes had won out.</p>
<p>But even with this sound logic, Sherlock feels it is imperative to correct the woman, because John would probably go out of his way to do the same. Rosie is decidedly not Sherlock’s. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Sherlock is not suited to be <em>anyone’s </em>father; he cannot possibly fulfill the emotional needs of a child, what with having the emotional bandwidth of a child himself. And, surely, John agrees.</p>
<p>“Her father has stepped away for the moment,” Sherlock says, simple and to the point.</p>
<p>The woman takes a moment to register this. “Father, father--yes, I see," she says solemnly under her breath before perking up with, "But isn't that just the oldest excuse in the book! A moment is never a moment, is it? My late husband took a lot of <em>moments </em>in his day. A <em>moment </em>for a cigarette often turned into a ride down the pub.” She leans in toward Sherlock, her voice taking on a light but conspiratorial tone, “Think they’re being clever. But we know better, don’t we?”</p>
<p>Sherlock frowns.</p>
<p>Why is this woman speaking so familiarly, as if she knows John personally? As if she and Sherlock are chums?</p>
<p>More to the point, why is this woman still speaking to Sherlock at all?</p>
<p>“Oh, hello,” the woman says, perching her sunglasses onto her nostrils like a pince-nez, and Sherlock zeroes in on the faint jaundice of her eyes. “Is this Father?”</p>
<p>Sherlock turns to see.</p>
<p>John is marching toward them with a marked pep in his step, a coffee and a grease-stained bag in tow.</p>
<p>“Daddy!” Rosie trills. “Look! Doggy!”</p>
<p>Constance is back on her feet, her tail wagging furiously at John’s approach.</p>
<p>“Yes, I see that; have we made friends?” John hands over Sherlock’s scone and nods politely at the woman. “Afternoon.”</p>
<p>“Sir," says the woman. "I was just having the loveliest of chats with your two special ones, here.”</p>
<p>John’s eyebrows furrow deeply.</p>
<p>Sherlock keeps his face very still.</p>
<p>Apparently, Sherlock had not clarified to this woman that he isn’t, in fact, Rosie’s parent. She had gone on to assume that he is not only Rosie’s father, but that John is also Rosie’s father. Hence Rosie and Sherlock having an attachment to John that could merit them being considered, Sherlock cringes internally at the word, <em>special</em> to John.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” John says, sounding distant. “My two…?”</p>
<p>“I was telling your husband that your daughter reminds me of mine. She was also a happy, beautiful baby with big, blue eyes. Just gorgeous. I do so wish I could see her more often, but she’s all the way in Australia doing god knows what with that <em>man</em>.”</p>
<p>John’s mouth makes a tiny ‘o’ in understanding.</p>
<p>Sherlock remains as still as a stone.</p>
<p><em>Husband</em>.</p>
<p>
  <em>Daughter.</em>
</p>
<p>Sherlock can’t quite picture himself as a husband to anyone, let alone to John. And the image of him as a father: that's even murkier.</p>
<p>They are singularly absurd ideas.</p>
<p>But it doesn’t stop the hateful, dreamy flutter within his chest.</p>
<p>“Um," John is saying, sounding a touch poleaxed. "That’s—well. Thank you.”</p>
<p>No correction: interesting. Often, John is champing at the bit to disprove a stranger’s assumption as to the nature of their relationship. Perhaps John <em>is </em>truly too tired to refute it. </p>
<p>The woman sighs wistfully. “Constance is my only baby these days.”</p>
<p>Everyone looks at Constance, who has decided to lie down, chin on her paws, spent from all the excitement. She snuffles contentedly as Rosie continues to stroke her back.</p>
<p>No one speaks for a while.</p>
<p>John is smiling at the woman, rictus-like. Every fibre of his demeanour screams that he wants her to leave them alone, but the woman remains where she is, intractably ignorant, too busy making proud googly-eyes at Constance.</p>
<p>It’s clear that the situation isn’t going to pivot in their favour any time soon, so Sherlock decides to make the best of it. He’s always been partial to dogs, after all.</p>
<p>Constance’s tail slaps against the ground--even as the rest of her remains motionless--when Sherlock folds himself into a pretzel, seated opposite Rosie, and places his hand to coarse fur.</p>
<p>Later, when the woman finally leaves them be, they settle back onto the bench, John propping Rosie onto his lap.</p>
<p>“I feel bad for that woman,” John says.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Sherlock agrees, handing John his coffee. “An estranged daughter and a deceased husband. Lives alone--well, excepting <em>Constance</em>. Alcoholic; I could see it in her eyes, her fingernails, her skin.”</p>
<p>John nods sagely, as if he’d deduced the very same facts about the woman. “And I suspect she doesn’t get out much. She was starving for conversation.” John gingerly pushes back the fringe from Rosie’s forehead while Rosie pokes her fingers in John’s breast pocket to see what treasures lie within. “To be honest, I probably would’ve ended up like her.”</p>
<p>“A pensioner with appalling fashion taste whose sole companion is a dog that might as well be the ghost of a Victorian woman? How very specific.”</p>
<p>John takes a long gulp of coffee. “An alcoholic with neither friends nor family to my name."</p>
<p>“Ah,” Sherlock says, slumping downwards, looking at his lap.</p>
<p>“But thanks to this one,” John says, swiping his thumb over Rosie’s forehead. “And--to you, my life was turned around.”</p>
<p>Sherlock sits upright. “Oh.”</p>
<p>“Yeah. You changed my life.” John keeps his eyes trained on Rosie as he speaks. “I’ve never been a lucky man--god, not in the least--but, somehow, I was allowed this. Somehow, I was allowed Rosie. And you.”</p>
<p>John finally turns his head, raises his eyes to Sherlock’s, tentative, at first, then growing in assuredness the longer they look at each other.</p>
<p>With the force of a lorry slamming into his chest, Sherlock is reminded that he would die for this man.</p>
<p>Has (sort of) died for this man.</p>
<p>Sherlock has done and will continue to do whatever it takes to make John’s life the best it can be, because John deserves nothing but the best. John saying that Sherlock had changed his life for the better--it’s validating. If Sherlock were to never see John again after today, he could at least find solace in the fact that he’d somehow managed to pull off granting John a modicum of peace.</p>
<p>There are so many things Sherlock wants to say to John, in this moment, to express how lucky <em>Sherlock </em>has been to have John in his life.</p>
<p>He wants to tell John how he’s made Sherlock a better man; how he would be led astray without John; how he’s never enjoyed the company of someone even as iota as much as he has John’s; how a great deal of his waking moments are occupied with thoughts of John; how Sherlock is in<em> devastating, glorious love</em> with him.</p>
<p>Love had once been a laughable concept to Sherlock.</p>
<p>He’d dismissed it as treacly nonsense, as humankind's death knell for rationality.</p>
<p>But he’d known, after meeting John, that he’d fallen in love.</p>
<p>It’d been too different from his previously focussed, sharp state of mind. It'd blunted the edges of pure chains of reasoning and thought. In a way, the only logical explanation for his altered headspace was, in fact, the encroachment of this very real and all-consuming sentiment.</p>
<p>Sherlock will never breathe a word of this to John, of course.</p>
<p>If he were to, it’d only catalyse the inevitable: horrified, John would hasten to run off with Rosie into the arms of a faceless girlfriend, a wife. And while Sherlock had seen John and Rosie often in the past year, John has only just moved back into 221b, and Sherlock would like to have him there for as long as practicable.</p>
<p>And so, if Sherlock wants to keep John, all he can do is say nothing.</p>
<p>The wind swells, circling leaves into the air, one of which lands atop Sherlock’s head. Sherlock lifts his hand to pick it out.</p>
<p>“I’ve got it,” John blurts.</p>
<p>Sherlock freezes, hand poised mid-air.</p>
<p>John is reaching out, his fingertips brushing Sherlock’s forehead and fringe. Fingers push through the thicket of Sherlock’s curls.</p>
<p>This is--uncommonly intimate.</p>
<p>It’s very much not <em>them</em>. It’s not what they do.</p>
<p>But Sherlock doesn’t move a muscle of his face, lest he give away how very much he wishes it were them.</p>
<p>It isn't an easy task.</p>
<p>John is being deliberately slow in the extraction, lingering, and he has a weather eye on Sherlock. Assessing, almost. As if he anticipates Sherlock’s façade to crack and wants to catch him out. Sherlock finds that he rather hates the role reversal; evaluator befits him more than evaluee.</p>
<p>When John sits back, he looks down at the wilted leaf and twirls the stem between his fingers with a pensive expression. “Didn’t suit you, really.”</p>
<p>“No,” Sherlock plays along, sounding admirably unstirred. “That shade of green clashes with my shirt.”</p>
<p>John looks up at Sherlock and flashes a smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes.</p>
<p>With no small amount of fear, Sherlock wonders if something all too revealing had slipped through a fracture in his stony mask.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>2.</strong>
</p><p>Sherlock enters the daycare building with some apprehension.</p><p>He’s not picked up Rosie from daycare before, but John’s been waylaid at the surgery and had run out of options. John had apologised profusely (unnecessarily) for “burdening” Sherlock with the task, even though Sherlock doesn’t mind, not at all. But Sherlock doesn’t know how Rosie will react to the change of routine. Her life had already been upended to the nth degree when she and John moved from Chelmsford to London; Sherlock would hate to add insult to injury. And while Rosie is comfortable with him, he’s not acted in a guardian capacity before. It could be a smidge discombobulating.</p><p>The receptionist has her head bowed over a filing cabinet drawer, finger skimming the tops of folders, tongue between her teeth in concentration, when Sherlock glides up to the front desk.</p><p>“Sorry," she says without looking up. "Be with you in a moment.”</p><p>After a good thirty seconds, she plucks out a folder triumphantly and raises her head, takes Sherlock in with dawning astonishment. “Oh my god.”</p><p>Sherlock darts his eyes to the right, to the left. “Not quite.” He swiftly removes his ID from his wallet, slides it across the counter. “Sherlock Holmes. I should be on the approved guardian list for Rosamund Watson.”</p><p>“Sorry!” she says, stumbling over to the counter and sparing a glance at his ID. “Sorry, yes, I actually--I know who you are.’” She offers him a nervous smile. “Dr Watson knows we’re all fans of his blog. And he talks about you quite a bit.”</p><p>Sherlock blinks. “He...does?”</p><p>“Well, of course! Though, to be fair, we’re all fascinated by your work, so we’ve a lot of questions. The new one, the ‘Bermondsey Bijoux’ case? I couldn’t believe how you managed to--”</p><p>Sherlock is flattered that John talks about him, and “quite a bit,” at that. But what, precisely, does he say? For all of his talents, sadly, Sherlock has not yet perfected the art of omniscience.</p><p>“--a photo?” is what Sherlock tunes back into. The woman brandishes her mobile, giddy. “Just a quick one, if you wouldn’t mind?”</p><p>Sherlock assents begrudgingly--he must be on his best behaviour for the sake of Rosie's future at this establishment (and for the sake of avoiding John's wrath)--and the woman turns around, holds the mobile above their heads.</p><p>The resulting photo puts her uncompromising excitement in stark relief to Sherlock’s scowl, but she doesn’t seem to care. “Thanks so much! It just must be so lovely being colleagues, you and Dr Watson.”</p><p>“I’m sorry?”</p><p>“I wish I had a set-up like that.” She glances over forlornly at the empty computer chair to her right. “It’d be a dream having my man right here, next to me, all day. I’ve mates who’ve met their partners through work. Granted, some of them ended up loathing spending so much time together that they eventually got a divorce. But I can’t see that happening if he’s my ‘person,’ you know? I mean, you obviously know.”</p><p>Sherlock cottons on to her meaning, a lump in his throat. “You are mistaken about the nature of my relationship with Dr Watson. We are colleagues and friends; nothing more.”</p><p>The woman stares at him for a moment, her face contorting in horror. “<em>Oh, god</em>.” She buries her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry. I’m <em>such </em>an idiot.”</p><p>Sherlock agrees, but has learned not to say everything he thinks. “Quite all right.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, I just thought--I assumed--I’ve been reading the papers, and they said Dr Watson moved back in with you a few months ago after his--and then you were put on the guardian list shortly after that, and now you’re <em>here</em> to pick up Rosie, and I--I thought--”</p><p>“Speaking of Rosie,” Sherlock cuts in, peremptory.</p><p>Sherlock knows, on an intellectual level, that his rancour is misdirected. It’s a fairly rational assumption for this woman, and even the rags, to believe Sherlock and John are a couple. They are living together, and Sherlock is someone valued enough in John’s life to have responsibility for John’s child, to mind her even in the quotidian: picking her up from daycare, taking her to the park or to a restaurant, etcetera. But he can’t help himself; these well-meaning strangers keep dangling the painful untruth of his and John’s relationship under Sherlock’s nose.</p><p>“Yes. Rosie. Yes,” the receptionist is saying, looking like she would prefer to disappear. “I’m--sorry. Again.” She presses a button, speaks into a microphone, voice wibbly, “Um. Rosie Watson.”</p><p>Sherlock gives her a curt nod, takes his ID, and steps away from the desk.</p><p>A woman opens the door to the playroom, leading Rosie by hand.</p><p>Rosie spots Sherlock instantly, her face lighting up.</p><p>“Sherlah!” she cries, running at him. Sherlock smiles, pleased to see her and relieved she’s not acted out of turn because he isn’t John, and squats down, lets her hug his knee. He gives her head two quick pats, and she looks up at him with inquisitive, fathomless eyes. “Where’s Daddy?”</p><p>“Your father is working late today, so he’s asked me to take you home. Are you hungry?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Rosie mumbles, face mashed into his knee.</p><p>“Shall we get a pizza?”</p><p>Rosie is beside herself at the idea, throws herself off Sherlock to skip in a circle, chanting, “Pizza! Pizza!”</p><p>“I’ll take that as a yes,” Sherlock says, lips curling. He stands up and holds out his hand.</p><p>Rosie clasps her hand in his. “Sherlah and Daddy will take me home now?”</p><p>“Yes, I will take you home every so often when your father’s job necessitates it, since this went over swimmingly.” He casts a look at the receptionist, who drops her head guiltily. She’d clearly been watching his and Rosie’s entire exchange.</p><p>“Swimly?”</p><p>“Swimmingly. It means ‘very well.’”</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>“Did you have an agreeable day?” Sherlock asks as they exit the building.</p><p>Rosie begins to swing their clasped hands in the carefree way of children, and Sherlock feels utterly ridiculous, but quickly forgets his embarrassment as Rosie proceeds to tell him, in her endearingly shambolic way, about the joys of today’s games and lessons.</p><p>And Sherlock listens, his heart light.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>3.</strong>
</p><p>Sherlock traces his eyes over the curve of John’s bicep, his short shirtsleeve hugging the muscle, straining against the fabric.</p><p>Sherlock had noticed, of course, that John had taken to exercising in his bedroom, a steady bang bang bang permeating through the floor and rattling the glassware like clockwork. He’d been spare-looking when he’d moved back into 221b four months ago, hadn’t been himself, but a year of grieving had wrung the life out of him. But now--there is a notable transformation. Sherlock had been monitoring the progress <em>very </em>closely, as any scientist would. Though, maybe, just <em>maybe</em>, Sherlock isn’t entirely unbiased; he’s been attracted to John since the day they met, but he’s been attracted to many men over the course of his lifetime and had always been able to dismiss such fancies. In recent years, however, he’s found his resolve steadily disintegrating. Worse yet, in the past few weeks, Sherlock’s reptilian brain had triumphed one too many times over the logical neomammalian.</p><p>“Something on my arm?” John says, glancing down.</p><p>“Hm?” Sherlock says airily, floating his eyes away past John’s head, toward the bustle of the restaurant.</p><p>“More pancake,” Rosie demands.</p><p>“Say please,” John says.</p><p>“Please pancake,” Rosie amends, somewhat.</p><p>John passes a slice of buchujeon over to Rosie’s plate. “There was a look about you.”</p><p>"A look?" Sherlock says, watching a waiter weave through tables with a trayful of fruit-flavoured soju bottles. "What look?"</p><p>“Dunno. There's just--staring. A lot of it. More than normal. Your normal, that is."</p><p>“If you must know,” Sherlock begins, already regretting what he is about to say, “I’ve been tracking the progress you’ve made since you began watching those egregious YouTube exercise videos. ‘<em>Brilliant, mate! You’ve got this!’” ‘Just two more minutes to go; you’re an absolute beast!’” </em>Sherlock mimics in a nasally tone. “Dreadful. How can you stand to watch them ad infinitum?”</p><p>John sits back in his chair, looking smug. And he has every right to be smug, because his blue and purple gingham button-up, exposing a deep vee of tanned skin dusted with blond hair, is flattering not only in colour, but in fit, clinging to his lean torso like a glove.</p><p>“Okay, but why?”</p><p>Sherlock snaps his eyes up. “Why what?”</p><p>John crosses his arms over his chest. “Why’ve you bothered ‘tracking my progress?’ How can that <em>possibly </em>be useful information? Thought you didn’t like to clutter your mind with useless rubbish.”</p><p>Sherlock has to think fast to explain himself, and, luckily, thinking fast is the only way he <em>can </em>think.</p><p>“It’s far from rubbish, John. As we all know, extramarital affairs are a common motivating factor for uxoricides--the philandering husband, frustrated with his life, and his wife, may murder her and try to start anew. Typically, a philanderer will lose an average of 3 kilos and/or ‘bulk up’ in order to impress his paramour. By monitoring your progress, I now have a reference for how long an affair could have potentially been taking place based on muscle accumulation in males of your age bracket, a demographic which accounts for 16% of convicted murderers in the U.K.”</p><p>John takes this in blankly for a moment, and Sherlock thinks he’s got him, hook, line, and sinker, but then John huffs out a laugh and says, “God, you really are a master bullshitter.”</p><p>Perhaps some of Sherlock’s methods need fine-tuning, after all.</p><p>“You’ve been looking,” John goes on, shrugging. “That’s fine. I don’t mind you looking.”</p><p>Like a mathematician agonising over a heretofore unsolved, but potentially paradigm-shifting equation, Sherlock shuts himself in his mind and peers at John’s words from every possible angle.</p><p>Clearly, John doesn’t mind Sherlock’s unreserved attention because it validates the payoff of his exercise regimen. And maybe John has finally awoken to the fact that Sherlock is attracted to him, and is assuring him, yet again, that <em>it’s all fine</em>. An act of kindness, a softening of a blow. At least, if this is the case, John doesn’t seem to mind. At least it will not be cause for the destruction of their friendship. Sherlock is marginally heartened that his own foolish transparency hasn’t been repellent.</p><p>But then John drops a lit match to all of Sherlock’s paper-thin conclusions, setting them aflame with the words, “It’s kind of the point.”</p><p>Sherlock blinks. And blinks again. “The...point?”</p><p>“Mr Holmes!” A woman's overeager voice. “I heard you were dining with us and I had to come and see you for myself! I'm Hee-Eun; this is my restaurant. We're so pleased to have you.”</p><p>Sherlock is staring at John, brows knitted together, mouthing<em> the point?</em></p><p>John looks down at his lap, smiling like he has a secret.</p><p>“I do hope everything is to your tastes?”</p><p>Sherlock keeps on staring at John, unable to dissect <em>the point </em>in the same meticulous fashion he’d afforded to <em>I don’t mind you looking. </em></p><p>Perhaps <em>the point</em> is for John to receive attention in the very way Sherlock has given it. John will soon, inevitably, search for a partner, a woman. A mother for Rosie. John is no longer grieving Mary--that much is obvious. He is ready, priming himself, hoping to attract a mate.</p><p>That is <em>the point.</em></p><p>“Mr Holmes?”</p><p>Sherlock snaps out of it, recalling the unfortunate reality that people other than John exist, and finds a thirtysomething Korean woman (<em>recently deceased parent [previous owner of restaurant], born in Korea, moved to London at a young age, rebellious streak, obsessed with fitness, 2 cats) </em>looking down at him, etched with concern.</p><p>“<em>Everything is delicious</em>,” Sherlock says in Korean, the woman's eyes widening. “<em>Thank you very much.”</em></p><p>"Oh! <em>You speak Korean?" </em></p><p>“<em>A little</em>,” Sherlock admits.</p><p>"<em>Your accent is very good!</em>" She seems over the moon by this, forgetting Sherlock’s momentary bout of rudeness earlier. Tipping her head to indicate John, she asks Sherlock, “<em>Is this your boyfriend?</em>” She then considers Rosie, who is chewing meditatively on the last of the tteokbokki appetiser. “<em>Husband, rather?”</em></p><p>John is looking suspicious. He knows he’s being talked about, and hates not knowing what is being said.</p><p>“If you know me, you may know Dr John Watson,” Sherlock trips over himself to say, reverting back to English, swishing a hand in John’s direction.</p><p>John visibly relaxes, gives an awkward salute. “Hello.”</p><p>“Dr Watson, I am sorry,” Hee-Eun gushes. “I didn’t recognise you.”</p><p>“Happens all the time,” John murmurs.</p><p>Hee-Eun motions to encompass all of them at the table. “<em>You have a beautiful family</em>,” she tells Sherlock. “<em>And it seems your daughter likes our food very much!</em>”</p><p>To his credit, Sherlock does not react outwardly to the comment.</p><p>Who would it hurt to play into the fantasy, just this once? John doesn’t know what’s being said. If there’s ever been a more opportune moment for Sherlock to indulge, it’s now.</p><p>“<em>Thank you</em>,” he says meaningfully, glancing at John, who’s gone back to scrutinising him. “<em>You’re most kind." </em>He dares to add,<em> "And, yes--my daughter has quite the refined palate, indeed.” </em></p><p>After a few final pleasantries are exchanged, Hee-Eun begs off, and Sherlock sets to digging into the dregs of his kimchi-jjigae, hoping John will leave him to it.</p><p>No such luck.</p><p>“What was that last bit about, then?” John asks pleasantly enough. “And since when do you speak Korean?”</p><p>Sherlock shrugs one shoulder. “I spent a few months in Los Angeles back in the late nineties. Learned the basics to get into the good graces of suspects in a series of robberies and murders.”</p><p>"The basics?" John says in an accusing tone. "You had a full-blown conversation with her."</p><p>Sherlock scoops up and slides a heaping spoonful of pork belly, tofu, and spicy stew into his mouth, taking his sweet time to swallow and to help himself to a sip of water. “We were discussing your blog," he lies. "She spoke highly of it. Yet another ‘fan’ with questionable taste.”</p><p>John rolls his eyes, but there’s amusement tugging at the corner of his lips. “Jealous?”</p><p>“No. Simply...disappointed.”</p><p>John throws a balled up napkin at Sherlock. Sherlock dodges it effortlessly.</p><p>“Why, Daddy?” Rosie asks.</p><p>“You’re such a prick,” John says affectionately.</p><p>Sherlock smiles.</p><p>In short order, they’re fighting over the bill (Sherlock wins, as usual) and are on their way back to Baker Street. In the cab, Sherlock holds Rosie in his lap so she can poke her head out of the window like an excitable puppy, hot humid air pillowing her face.</p><p>John hasn’t looked at Sherlock once since leaving the restaurant.</p><p>Every time Sherlock glances across the cab, he finds John still and remote, eyes unseeingly glued to the window, hands folded in his lap.</p><p>Sherlock doesn’t want to think that John’s sudden saturnine state has to do with their conversation earlier. </p><p>
  <em>That’s fine. I don’t mind you looking. It’s kind of the point.</em>
</p><p>He doesn't want to think about how carelessly obvious he's been in his attentions.</p><p>So he simply doesn’t think about it at all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Re: Sherlock’s monologue about men losing “an average of 3 kilos” to impress their paramours when in the midst of an affair: they mentioned this fact in the true crime documentary, <i>American Murder: The Family Next Door</i>.  It’s a little junk science-y, sure, but it’s fun, semi-believable factoid! As to the rest, men ages 35-44 (John’s supposed age bracket) do account for 16% of convicted murderers in England and Wales, per the latest Office for National Statistics <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2020">release.</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>4.</strong>
</p><p>It’s a sweltering Saturday in July, so nearly every family in existence have decided to while away the dog-day hours in the cool indoors of the Science Museum. </p><p>Tiny, shrill voices are too loud.</p><p>People are too close.</p><p>There is no room to think or breathe.</p><p>Sherlock tries his damndest to remain calm; to not to show frustration when a group of children nearly bowl him over not once, but twice--Rosie is enjoying herself, and Sherlock won't put a damper on her day. And John seems to be of a similar mind, keeps throwing Sherlock commiserative looks. There is some satisfaction in knowing John is as tortured as he is.</p><p>The children’s exhibits are interactive, so Rosie has been running from station to station, breathless with excitement, poking, squeezing, and stomping on things. They can hardly keep up with her. But after a fair bit of flitting around, she finds her home at a long water basin with Rube Goldberg-like tubes and wheels demonstrating physics phenomena. The exhibit is, of course, mobbed with children, but they manage to nab spots, Rosie standing and running her hand experimentally through the rushing water in the basin, Sherlock crouching down beside her, and John standing a bit off to the side, watching them.</p><p>Then, amidst laughter and buzzing chatter, comes a disembodied voice: “John Watson?”</p><p>Sherlock cranes his neck and pinpoints the source immediately.</p><p>A gobsmacked man with a child in tow are making their ways through the crowd toward John, and as they get closer, a few essential facts about the man jump out: <em>divorced, gay, of Egyptian descent, works as a GP (or perhaps a specialist), biological parent to the child clutching his hand for dear life.</em></p><p>Sherlock turns his attention back to John, whose body is stiff, hands clenching nervously at his sides. Based on the man's age and profession, Sherlock suspects he had been a schoolmate of John’s, and apparently one of whom had caused John some grief.</p><p>“Wow,” John says, the delighted surprise he’d wished to convey falling flat to anyone with the skill to detect it. “Hafiz. Hi.”</p><p>“This is mad, seeing you! You look…” Hafiz’s eyes rove over John’s body a bit too appreciatively for Sherlock’s tastes. “Fantastic.”</p><p>“Who that?” Rosie stage whispers to Sherlock, though she sounds far away, too invested in watching a ball being sucked into a water vortex to really care about John’s mysterious companion.</p><p>“Shh,” Sherlock tells her, crouching lower, using Rosie as a cover.</p><p>“Ah, well--thank you,” John says, a bit fidgety. His eyes flicker from Hafiz’s chest to his eyes, lightning fast. “As do you.” John glances down at the frightened little boy hiding behind his father’s leg, and his lips quirk up. “I see you’ve been busy.”</p><p>Hafiz grins, petting his son’s hair. “Yep. Had to do <em>something </em>in the past, what is it….14 years?”</p><p>“Think so, yeah. God. Feels like another lifetime.”</p><p>“Truly,” Hafiz says with a note of sadness. He pushes his son to the forefront. “But, yes! This is my son, Danny. Danny, say hello to John; John and Daddy went to school together.”</p><p>John tries on a smile. “Hello, Danny.”</p><p>Danny hadn’t liked being catapulted into the spotlight, so he scrambles to disappear back behind his father’s leg. Hafiz tuts, his hand returning to rest on the boy’s head, protective. “Sorry, he’s been like this since...well, since the divorce. Kind of retreating into himself, you know. We’re working on it.”</p><p>“No, it’s fine, of course, it's fine--and sorry to hear about...that,” John says awkwardly. Then he shifts gears, bumbles out, “You know I still see Mike Stamford?”</p><p>Hafiz looks relieved to be on more neutral ground. “Mike! He was <em>such</em> a sweetheart. How is he?”</p><p>“Great, yeah. Married with 3 kids. Lovely wife. Teaching at Barts, if you can believe it.”</p><p>Hafiz’s eyes widen theatrically. “<em>No!</em>”</p><p>“Yep. Loved it so much he didn’t want to leave.”</p><p>“He always <em>was </em>such a goody-goody.”</p><p>“Yeah. Seriously. I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.”</p><p>“Hey, now--we had fun. For a hot minute. Or, really, a hot second.”</p><p>The colour has drained completely from John’s face.</p><p>He bows his head, lowers his voice, and Sherlock strains to hear, can only catch snippets: “...regret...hard feelings...something, back then...nothing...you...”</p><p>“Oh, no--no, not at all, John,” Hafiz replies with overcompensating gusto, at a more than decent volume. “It’s water under the bridge. I know you had a rough go of it. Can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been to still not be out at 29.”</p><p>Unwittingly, Sherlock jerks forward and bangs his head on the water basin with a loud, hollow clang.</p><p>“Sherlah!" Rosie shouts, pitching into laughter that's echoed by the children around them. "Owie!”</p><p>Sherlock's collapsed onto his arse, and is cradling his throbbing head in hand and cursing under his breath.</p><p>He can feel everyone staring at him.</p><p>“Oh my god. Are you Sherlock Holmes?” Hafiz is saying. “Is that Sherlock Holmes?” he poses to John, presumably.</p><p>“Sure is,” is John’s sardonic reply. When Sherlock looks up, John’s concerned face floods his view. He reaches out for Sherlock’s battered forehead. “You all right?”</p><p>Sherlock shoves John’s hand away. “Tickety-boo,” he says through clenched teeth, bringing himself to his feet and striding over to Hafiz, ploughing through the ebbing pain. “Apologies for my rather inelegant introduction; I’m not usually so gormless.” He sticks out his arm expectantly, and Hafiz hesitantly takes the offering. They shake, and Sherlock squeezes the life out of his hand, pinioning him with his eyes, wanting to know everything him, more than the eye can see. Wanting to know about this man (this <em>man!)</em> who had been involved (romantically? sexually? both?) with John Watson, to some degree. “It’s a rare treat to meet an old friend of John’s.”</p><p>Sherlock's mind is whirring.</p><p>What qualities had attracted John to this man?</p><p>He knows John has no preference with the women he dates, in terms of appearance--he has no apparent "type"--and their personalities run the gamut (though, they're universally boring, with the exception of Mary).</p><p>But Sherlock has no data on men. </p><p>“It’s...nice to meet you too, Mr Holmes,” Hafiz says carefully, drawing back his hand the moment Sherlock loosens his grip.</p><p>“Sherlock, please,” Sherlock says as smoothly as he can.</p><p>“Daddy, who that?” Rosie asks, pointing unselfconsciously at Hafiz.</p><p>“No pointing, that’s rude,” John says, lowering her pointing finger and taking her hand. “Sorry. Hafiz, this is my daughter, Rosie. Say hello to Daddy’s friend, Ro.”</p><p>“Hello!” Rosie says, as effervescent as ever.</p><p>“Hi there, Rosie.” Hafiz puts a hand on his hip and leans over, speaking in the fake, jovial tone adults often use with children, “What a pretty name for a pretty girl.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Rosie says, pulling the collar of her shirt over her nose and mouth, suddenly shy.</p><p>“Would you like to meet Danny?” Hafiz says.</p><p>Danny and Rosie exchange murmured hellos before Danny quickly returns to the sanctuary of his father’s leg.</p><p>Hafiz looks sheepish. “I’ll come clean, John. I <em>may </em>have been keeping tabs on you.”</p><p>“Suppose I’d be offended if you weren’t,” John says, the most cheery he’s sounded since Hafiz’s appearance. “It’s all out there, isn’t it?”</p><p>“Oh, yes,” Hafiz says, looking between John and Sherlock and Rosie. “I was so very sorry to read about your wife. I would’ve contacted you to offer condolences, if I still had your number.”</p><p>The spectre of Mary has its usual effect, putting John in a grim mood. “Yes. Well. Yes. Thank you.”</p><p>“But seeing you now, like this--well, it’s lifted my spirits.”</p><p>“It’s been a long road. Yes.”</p><p>“I suppose the papers haven’t been far from the mark, then?”</p><p>“Sorry?” John says, confused, while Sherlock knows precisely the implication of the question, and braces for the impact.</p><p>“I know they’ve been speculating for <em>aeons </em>about you and Sherlock--I didn’t know what to believe. I thought maybe you’d decided to stay in the closet. Then I saw you got married to a woman. That put them to rest. But now they’re back at it again. So…” Hafiz smiles tentatively. “Looks like they’ve not been far from the mark?”</p><p>Sherlock will never be freed from reliving this hell.</p><p>And he would refute it, on John’s behalf, if he’d had the cognitive ability to do so.</p><p>His mind has once again decided to stutter on the new information that John Watson had the option to <em>come out</em> and that John had in any capacity been <em>in the closet--</em>turns of phrase Sherlock had never thought he’d associate with John. That John had had a relationship, or a fling, with this man that stands before them. Had had a fling with a <em>man</em>. And, on balance of probability, may have even had flings with <em>men. </em>When? How often? With whom, precisely? There is so much Sherlock wants to know. So much he hadn’t seen.</p><p>How could he not have seen? </p><p>Or had Sherlock not looked, <em>really </em>looked, in an effort to remain ignorant to the potentiality that John could want Sherlock in that way, but had never, in fact, wanted him? </p><p>Because, now, being aware of John’s bisexuality corkscrews a knife deep into Sherlock’s heart.</p><p>“We like to have a bit of a laugh with the press, keep the sorry bastards guessing,” John is telling Hafiz. “Keep things open for interpretation; it reels them in, you know? Gets them interested, wanting to see more. My blog’s been a blinding success thanks in no small part to our efforts.” He thumps Sherlock’s back chummily. “Right, Sherlock?”</p><p>Sherlock looks at John askance.</p><p>John looks back at him dead-on, his eyes telegraphing a message: <em>just play along.</em></p><p>Oddly, John had said a lot without saying much at all.</p><p>It doesn't make a lick of sense. The answer had been a simple yes or no. But there must be a method to the madness, even if Sherlock cannot parse it. And he likes that he can’t parse it, likes to see John being enigmatic, for whatever reason, but he also hates it.</p><p>“Quite. Business is booming,” Sherlock says.</p><p>Hafiz blinks back at them owlishly.</p><p>They hadn’t answered his question, and he doesn’t know what to make of their two-man act, is adrift at sea. So it's unsurprising when he makes up an excuse, says his goodbye, and disappears into the depths of the museum.</p><p>John lets out a gust of breath once Hafiz is out of sight. “You have questions,” he says flatly, not meeting Sherlock’s eye.</p><p>“Seven, in fact,” Sherlock agrees.</p><p>John sniffs, gives a curt nod. “We’ll talk later.”</p><p><em>Later </em>turns out to be two gruelling hours later.</p><p>After spending an additional hour at the museum, they commute home, give Rosie a bath, set her up in John’s bedroom with her toys, and settle into their respective armchairs in the sitting room.</p><p>John gulps down his whiskey and Sherlock stares at him, following his every movement with hawkish interest.</p><p>“I may have wanted him to think that you and I were <em>possibly </em>together,” John tells Sherlock without preamble, easily picking up the thread started at the museum. “I also wanted him to think I wasn’t the coward I was all those years ago. That I could be out.”</p><p>“But why obfuscate?” Sherlock says. “Why not simply tell the lie?”</p><p>“Didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”</p><p>Sherlock scoffs, because if that isn’t the most misguided supposition on the damn <em>planet</em>. "Rest assured, my sensibilities would have remained intact."</p><p>John fiddles with his empty tumbler, looks anywhere in the room but at Sherlock. “Took me a while to figure out that I wasn’t...straight. It was right around when I started med school; 24, 25. Didn't want to accept it. But I couldn’t ignore it.”</p><p>“You don’t date men.”</p><p>“Dating women is easier than dating men; well, not exactly <em>easy</em>, but easier from a social perspective, I guess. Just like men are easier for a quick shag than women are. <em>So much</em> easier." A quirk at the corner of his lips. "Not a brag, that. It’s just what it is. And since the world only sees who I date, it was easy to stay closeted." John holds up the whiskey tumbler, squints into the glass, perhaps hoping for drink to materalise there. “I know I fought hard for people to think I wasn't...." He swallows. "What I was. Am. But I've actually only just started thinking I should just--stop. Life could be--better. Richer. I was going to tell you, eventually; should’ve told you, before.”</p><p>“There is no ‘should.’”</p><p>Finally, John looks at him. “It’s the kind of thing mates tell each other. And you’re my best mate.”</p><p>“In that case, I <em>should </em>tell you that I am similarly inclined. Though, only monosexually. That is, strictly men.”</p><p>Without missing a beat, John says, “In other words: you’re gay.”</p><p>“Yes. You don’t sound particularly surprised.”</p><p>“I thought--maybe. Probably. But I didn’t know for sure.”</p><p>“Well, now you know.”</p><p>“Now I know,” John says slowly. He drops his eyes to the floor, lets out a little laugh. “That’s us, then.”</p><p>“It is, indeed."</p><p>“Good,” John says, clearing his throat. “Good.”</p><p>He stands up, straightens out his shirt, shifts his weight from foot to foot. The physical embodiment of discomfiture. This frank conversation--it's not the kind they usually have. John will want to flee, to be alone. He will fixate on the conversation, coming to the conclusion that he regrets revealing his truth.</p><p>Or, terrifyingly, he may spend time considering Sherlock's attachment to him in a new light. </p><p>As expected, John looks at the landing door. Contemplates it. </p><p>But then something shifts in him, and he looks at Sherlock, breaking into a brilliant smile that makes Sherlock's heart sing. “Tea?” he says.</p><p>And he stays.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>5.</strong>
</p><p>It’s another oppressively hot day, and 221 is a building of Georgian times, ill-equipped for staple modern fixtures like air cons, so all Sherlock can do for relief is lie partly clothed on the sofa in the near-dark of their sitting room, his stringy hair pushed back off his forehead by a stretchy headband sprouting three tiny roses (pilfered from Rosie’s headwear collection), and bask in the weak breeze of an old fan stacked atop a tower of books on the coffee table.</p><p>To pass the time, Sherlock challenges himself to avoid looking at John, who he had glanced at once or twice (or thrice) before instating this (impossible) challenge to confirm what he’d already known--that John looks delectable in that white undershirt and those grey shorts, muscled and compact and golden, glistening with a sheen of sweat under the dim light of the desk lamp. And even though Sherlock manages not to look, he cannot ignore the nagging desire to <em>touch-smell-lick-kiss-fuck</em> him.</p><p>But these thoughts are useless.</p><p>They haven’t even a scintilla of possibility in becoming reality, and only serve to make the heat even more intolerable, Sherlock’s cock treacherously half-hard in his constricting pants.</p><p>Though, there is one mercy: John is fully absorbed in typing up a blog post and hasn’t, almost stubbornly so, looked Sherlock’s way once. Sherlock is grateful to be left to suffer sight unseen. But there’s also a niggling, pettish voice in the back of his head that wishes John <em>would </em>look at him.</p><p>Minutes tick by in a stultifying morass.</p><p>Sherlock unearths the book he’d tucked away in the sofa cushion for exactly this kind of mind-numbingly dull occasion, flicks on a lamp, and attempts to read about Cornish folklore.</p><p>It passes the time, for a short while.</p><p>Sherlock claps the book closed. “John.”</p><p>John jumps up in his seat. “<em>Jesus</em>.”</p><p>“<em>John</em>.”</p><p>“What?” John snaps, stabbing at his laptop keys with an angry flourish and finally looking at Sherlock.</p><p>“I’m dying,” Sherlock croaks.</p><p>“Right.” John slams his laptop shut, shoots up to his feet. “Get dressed. We’re going out.”</p><hr/><p>John’s barbed mood softens significantly when they get to Hampstead Heath, though it’s impossible not to be mollified by the majesty of the Pergola, a veritable maze of verdant greenery that winds around trellises and archways and stone pillars.</p><p>The change of scenery brightens Sherlock’s mood as well, and he chatters at John about Renaissance motets, playing a personal favourite of his on his mobile to demonstrate the genre’s artistry. John is attentive and curious, but misses the subtle complexities of the piece entirely.</p><p>“Of course you didn’t hear it,” Sherlock blusters. “An average listener wouldn’t notice the key shift in Lassus’s chromatic harmonies--”</p><p>“You know, that’s really starting to get old.”</p><p>Sherlock frowns. "Excuse me?"</p><p>“You, calling me average.”</p><p>Sherlock rolls his eyes. “You have an untrained musical ear. In this case, that is very much par for the course with respect to the average person.”</p><p>John cocks his hip onto a balustrade, watching Rosie talk animatedly to herself as she collects dead flowers and blades of grass strewn across the ground and fashions them into a sad-looking bouquet. “So I’m not average, then?”</p><p>Sherlock raises an eyebrow, sitting down beside John and leaning back on his hands, the stone railing hot to the touch. “Fishing for compliments? How unlike you.”</p><p>“No, believe me, if I wanted a compliment, you’re the very last person I’d go to.” Sherlock supposes he has a very good point. “Dunno. I just can’t ever get a sense of what you really think of me. Sometimes, I think I’ve got it. But then I’m second guessing myself.”</p><p>“Don’t be ridiculous. You know me, John. I’d hardly waste my time if I didn’t find you an enjoyable companion.” John snorts, shakes his head ruefully. “What?”</p><p>“‘Enjoyable companion’ makes me sound like a fucking dog.”</p><p>“Then allow me to clarify: I would not be able to abide in a world in which you do not exist. Why would you think you are anything but necessary?”</p><p>Silence.</p><p>Sherlock doesn’t turn to look at John, fearful that he’ll see something akin to horror on John’s face.</p><p>He shouldn’t have said that.</p><p>It’d been...too much.</p><p>But it’d been said, and all Sherlock can do is wait and see how John takes it. And prepare for the worst.</p><p>“Necessary?” John eventually repeats, sounding unsure.</p><p>Sherlock's lip twitches. “That's what I said.”</p><p>A pause.</p><p>John’s hand drapes over Sherlock’s where it lies flat on the railing.</p><p>His pulse drumming in his ears, Sherlock pulls his hand away, scraping against the stone. Because he cannot, in good conscience, allow John’s reputation to suffer. “You don’t want to do that.”</p><p>“Oh,” John says, and Sherlock winces at the dejected tone of his voice. “I’m--a complete idiot. <em>Shit, </em>I thought--”</p><p>“No,” Sherlock says firmly. Then, in an embarrassingly unwieldy sort of way, “It’s, um, quite--very, rather--fine. It’s--good. However, there’s a--we have company.”</p><p>John sits up ramrod straight, on alert. “A pap?”</p><p>“Yes. Just beyond the gate behind you to your left. He’s been there for the better part of a half hour.”</p><p>“Why didn’t you say? Jesus. Don’t people have sodding <em>lives</em>?” As John’s about to turn his head and look, Rosie begins trampling over a perfectly manicured flower bed, making Godzilla-like noises to create a fully immersive experience. “Oi! Off the flowers, miss!” Rosie doesn’t listen, mutinously continues to destroy the flower-town. “<em>Rosamund!</em>”</p><p>“Watson, you’re killing the flowers,” Sherlock calls out.</p><p>Rosie goes still at that, her face crumbling. She looks down at the carnage she’d wrought, and her face twists in the all too familiar contortion that precedes a cry.</p><p>“Christ, Sherlock,” John says in a hissed aside. “C’mere, darling. The flowers will be okay, c’mere.”</p><p>Rosie’s face untwists at John’s reassurance, but she’s riveted to her spot lest she cause even an iota more of damage by walking off the flower bed.</p><p>“Nope,” Sherlock says.</p><p>Rosie whimpers.</p><p>John tuts. “Would you shut up.”</p><p>“You’re shielding her from the reality that destructive actions can have devastating consequences.”</p><p>“Devestat--they’re <em>flowers</em>,” John says. Projects his voice for Rosie’s sake: “They’re just flowers. They’ll grow bigger and better than ever.”</p><p>This seems to effectively preclude Rosie’s fit, and she comes running full tilt at them.</p><p>“That is decidedly not how--”</p><p>“Just. Stop talking, yeah?” John says out of the side of his mouth, hoisting Rosie up, seating her on the balustrade between himself and Sherlock. “Okay.” He takes on a look of deadly calm. “Now I’m going to tell our friend in the bushes to piss off.”</p><p>Rosie looks up at John inquisitively. “Daddy?”</p><p>As if sensing the renewed attention, the paparazzo is emboldened to reveal himself more fully, stepping around the fence and positioning himself a few metres away, his camera raised. “Big fan of you blokes!” he shouts chirpily. “Mind if I ask a few questions?”</p><p>“Yeah. We would mind, actually,” John says flatly.</p><p>“Not even one little question?” the man needles.</p><p>John’s hands tighten into fists on his thighs. “Not even one. Thanks.”</p><p>“Come on, it’ll be a quick one. Easy answer. Promise.”</p><p>John gets to his feet, his shoulders up to his ears, his jaw tight.</p><p>Rosie slides over until she is pressed up against Sherlock’s side, grabs Sherlock’s hand. Attuned to John’s body language, she can tell that something is not right with her father.</p><p>“John,” Sherlock says, low and steady, hoping to convey<em> be reasonable </em>to him.</p><p>But John, as ever, bulldozes over the message. “Let me rephrase what I just said in a way you can understand: Can you piss off and let me enjoy this lovely day with my family in peace?”</p><p>The paparazzo is unmoved. “I’ll just ask it anyway, since we’re all here, and be on my way: Is it true you cheated on your wife with Sherlock Holmes?”</p><p>John staggers backwards, as if knocked off balance by a physical blow.</p><p>While it isn’t a question Sherlock hasn’t seen floated before, had seen it several times, in fact, on forums and celebrity gossip blogs when he’d been bored enough to trawl the internet for pablum of the sort (a pastime he will never reveal to John), to ask it in person--to ask John--is another level of idiotic valour. This man does not know the hellfire in which John Watson can reign down upon those who slight him. But Sherlock knows; <em>has </em>known John at his most volcanic.</p><p>And he thinks it quite prudent that Rosie does not ever know her father that way.</p><p>“Shall we take a walk?” Sherlock poses to Rosie, scooping her into his arms and standing up.</p><p>“How <em>dare </em>you,” John is saying, voice rumbling with the portent of danger, as Sherlock carts Rosie away in the opposite direction. “That’s my daughter’s dead fucking mother, you disrespectful piece of shit.”</p><p>Rosie starts, “What is Daddy--” </p><p>“Look at the pretty bird,” Sherlock says, overloud, pointing at a green parakeet that had landed on a branch jutting out into the pathway. It does the trick, Rosie gawping and reaching out for the animal. “A parakeet, also known as <em>Psittacara holochlorus</em>. Interestingly, they aren’t native to the U.K. Can you say <em>City-cahra hollow-chloris?</em>"</p><p>“<em>City-cahra</em>,” Rosie repeats, "<em>Hollow-chloris</em>."</p><p>“Can’t blame us for thinking it, though, can you? You went running right back to Holmes,” Sherlock hears the paparazzo say. “Did your wife know you were gay?”</p><p>The scuffle of two sets of shoes on dirt.</p><p>Rosie keeps trying to peer over Sherlock’s shoulder, but Sherlock redirects her gaze each time, brings them farther away from the powderkeg scene (though, not before sparing a glance over his shoulder just in time to see the pap’s camera sailing over the garden’s walls and John taking a fistful of the man’s shirt).</p><p>“Jesus, mate!” the pap cries out. “That camera cost a fucking bomb! I was only doing my job!”</p><p>“You’re lucky I only broke your camera and not your fucking fingers, <em>mate</em>. Put you out of a fucking job.”</p><p>“Get the fuck off me!”</p><p>“You didn't play nice, so I don’t think I will either.”</p><p>“You’re off your bleeding rocker! This is an assault, you know? I’m going to phone the police--”</p><p>“Mm, good idea, yeah. Go on. I’ll wait. Maybe one of my mates on the squad’ll take the call, hm?”</p><p>It doesn’t take much after that.</p><p>Shoes crunch through dirt--just one pair, this time--to beat a hasty retreat.</p><p>Certain it is safe to do so, Sherlock turns around and finds John marching purposefully toward him and Rosie, fury palpable. “Let’s go,” he growls, clomping on past them and out of the garden.</p><hr/><p>Parliament Hill, as the highest point in London, offers a view of the skyline that is unmatched.</p><p>Sherlock takes a moment, at the apex of the hill, to drink in the vista: a hodgepodge of austere Medieval buildings dwarfed by glittering skyscrapers. There is a discordance in this marrying of the old and the new, but there is also beauty, an enormity in its union. There is history, rich with art and people, though often bloodied and <em>wrong, wrong, wrong,</em> and it’s this complexity, this depth and charm and ugliness that attracts Sherlock to London.</p><p>Has always attracted him.</p><p>They settle in a spot as far away as possible from the couples and families speckling the hill, spreading a blanket over the grass. Sherlock sprawls out on top of it, the sun smoothing a layer of warmth across his exposed skin.</p><p>From his rucksack, John unpacks a sandwich and juice box for Rosie, who has her lunch quietly but vociferously, enraptured by a couple of boys throwing themselves to the ground and rolling down the hill. He takes out a sandwich for himself and offers one to Sherlock, which Sherlock declines.</p><p>John proceeds to eat in philosophic silence, watching Rosie watch the boys. The tension and anger he’d carried on their walk from the Pergola has dissipated, but he’s not yet fully recovered, hasn't said much to Sherlock or to Rosie since the incident.</p><p>After some time, John, miraculously, speaks in a full sentence: “I can’t believe the gall of that bastard.”</p><p>“I don’t know why you bothered confronting him,” Sherlock says, pushing back the matted fringe off his forehead. “The more you antagonise those people, the more they come back for seconds, thirds, fourths. You’ve just fed him.”</p><p>“<em>Completely</em> fucking classless. That went too damn far.”</p><p>“Yes. Tactless in the extreme. To say nothing of it being so very far from reality.”</p><p>John is quiet for a stretch. Then: “Actually, to be honest, I may have thought about it."</p><p>“Thought about...?”</p><p>“Cheating on Mary.”</p><p>This is the very last thing Sherlock expects to hear--now, or at all. “Oh.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“...I see.”</p><p>“I don’t think you do.”</p><p>Sherlock swallows. “Between thinking and doing--one has far more culpability, John.”</p><p>“I know. But I felt like such a shit person for even thinking about it. And I thought about it all the time.” He laughs, a sad sound. “I swear, Mary died thinking I was a bloody saint.”</p><p>“Excuse the trite expression, but you were ‘going through a rough patch.’ It’s quite normal to have escapist fantasies in such a circumstance.”</p><p>“It wasn’t that. Whenever I looked at her, I couldn’t stop thinking that it was all wrong. That she wasn’t the one for me. I wanted her to be; I really did. But she just wasn’t. And I didn’t do a damn thing about it. I was going to stay, for Rosie’s sake. I wanted Rosie to have a family, wanted her to have her mother around. It was what a family should be, I thought. Now, seeing it at a distance—I had, and have, other options.”</p><p>Sherlock closes his eyes meditatively, not wanting to dwell on any “option” that doesn’t involve him. “Perhaps you had some hope that there would be a <em>rapprochement</em>.”</p><p>“No, we were well beyond reconciliation. I’d’ve never forgiven her for--Ro, leave Sherlock alone.”</p><p>A heavy weight flops onto Sherlock’s stomach, causing Sherlock to release a soft <em>oof</em>, eyelids flying open.</p><p>Perched on him is Rosie, a lopsided, impish grin on her face.</p><p>“Interesting,” Sherlock says. “Am I furniture, now?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Rosie says matter-of-factly.</p><p>“Wrong,” Sherlock says, hooking his hands underneath her armpits and raising her aloft.</p><p>Rosie kicks her legs in the air and screams with delight.</p><p>Sherlock pulls her in toward his chest, resituates his hands so they’re tabletop-flat, bolstering her chest and stomach, and lifts her into the air.</p><p>“Plane!” Rosie crows, flailing her arms.</p><p>“Mind the turbulence,” Sherlock deadpans before throwing her in the air and catching her, her laughter ringing in his ears. He finds himself grinning, in turn, as he throws-and-catches, throws-and-catches.</p><p>When his arms tire out, he lets her go, and she seems re-energised, ready to conquer the world, and pleads with John to join a few boys preparing to race each other down the hill. John allows it, and she runs off.</p><p>Sherlock watches her go, watches her announce herself and her purpose to the boys, who are surprisingly receptive and take her into the fold without question, and Sherlock is reminded of how much he loves her.</p><p>Why he thinks it now, in this moment, he doesn't know. For someone who has all the answers, Sherlock cannot explain it, though he may always wonder at it. All he knows is that it is significant and life-affirming to love someone like this--natural, pure, and unencumbered.</p><p>Turning his head, he finds John looking in his direction, but his eyes are enshrouded in mystery behind his sunglasses. He moves closer to Sherlock, props up on his side, leaning on an elbow. He’s unhurried and deliberate as he takes off his sunglasses, places them onto the blanket beneath them.</p><p>And when he leans over Sherlock, he blocks the sun; becomes the sun.</p><p>They stare at each other for a heartbeat before John reaches out for Sherlock’s sunglasses. Stops. “Um. Mind if I...?”</p><p>“No,” Sherlock says quietly.</p><p>John carefully removes Sherlock’s sunglasses, leans away to place it out of reach, then eases back into form at Sherlock’s side. He places a hand atop a damp splotch on Sherlock’s chest.</p><p>Sherlock stiffens at the touch.</p><p>“This okay?”</p><p>“Yes,” Sherlock says, voice brittle.</p><p>John’s gaze is wavering between his hand on Sherlock’s chest and Sherlock’s eyes and Sherlock’s lips. Sherlock is flitting his eyes over John’s face, trying to understand how they could have possibly ended up here, wishing to penetrate John’s very grey matter.</p><p>John’s hand slides up Sherlock’s sternum until it’s resting between Sherlock’s collarbones.</p><p>Sherlock stops breathing.</p><p>“Relax,” John tells Sherlock, though he, himself, doesn’t sound relaxed, his voice a bit cracked.</p><p>“I am relaxed,” Sherlock says, though not as haughtily as he would’ve liked.</p><p>Sherlock’s heart is pounding like thunder under John’s hand.</p><p>John leans down in increments, angles his head.</p><p>And, at long last, their lips meet.</p><p>It’s a gentle kiss, lasting no more than a few seconds, but it effectively erases all of Sherlock’s doubts and regrets and self-flagellations.</p><p>It is so simple, yet so monumental, allowing Sherlock to see, with crystalline clarity, what he’d missed.</p><p>It’d been painfully obvious, in retrospect.</p><p>The evidence had been there.</p><p>It had lived in John’s gestures, his looks, his comments, these past few months.</p><p>But Sherlock had explained it away, had dismissed any possibility of John’s interest in him as anything more than friends because he couldn’t fathom someone wanting him that way. Who would want Sherlock, who is abrasive and dismissive of goodness? Who is an unfeeling automaton? He is not made to be loved. No one had ever wanted him--even John hadn’t, not for a long time. And maybe Sherlock had been scared of what it could mean. It would transform his role in John’s life. He would take more responsibility with Rosie, and that is something he cannot mishandle. That is something far too precious to get wrong.</p><p>John is withdrawing, and that simply won’t do, so Sherlock pushes himself up enough to get a hand on the back of John’s skull, guides John back to his lips.</p><p>John’s hand slides up Sherlock’s neck this time, cups Sherlock’s cheek as they kiss, small movements of lips that rapidly become wide-mouthed and desperate. John flings a part of the blanket over their heads, which isn’t quite putting them under the cover of privacy, makes what they’re doing even more obvious (and hotter, in the literal sense [and perhaps the metaphorical sense]), even if the particulars are obscured. Soon, there are tiny whining noises, tongues against tongues, and Sherlock is sucking John’s bottom lip into his mouth--</p><p>“Daddy! Sherlah! Why are you hiding?”</p><p>John punches the blanket off them, unsuctions himself from Sherlock, and rolls away in one swift motion, leaving Sherlock bereft. Catatonic.</p><p>“Not hiding, love,” John says in a startled kind of way. “Sorry we weren't--did you win the race?”</p><p>Rosie is telling John something in her excited, babbling way, but Sherlock hears none of it.</p><p>He’s breathing hard, and he feels very far away, hanging in the ether, amongst the stars, far from any grounding.</p><p>His mobile vibrating in his pocket brings him back down to earth.</p><p>Sitting bolt upright and marshalling his wits about him, he answers the call. “Sherlock Holmes.”</p><p>“Hey, Sherlock, uh--you okay?” Lestrade asks.</p><p>“I’m sorry, is this an intervention?”</p><p>“I’ve a case, but you just sound...I dunno. Off.”</p><p>“As astoundingly unobservant as ever; I can’t but appreciate your commitment to consistency, Lestrade,” he says brashly, sounding more like himself. “Now, tell me about the case. And don’t be boring.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>On Lassus's motets: in canon, Holmes wrote a monograph on the <i>Polyphonic Motets of Lassus.</i> I learned more about motets than I ever thought I would when trying to figure out how to succinctly describe their uniqueness.... I'll be fun at parties with these titbits, for sure.</p><p>On Psittacara holochlorus: also known as a green parakeet, this bird is indeed not native to the U.K.--it’s native to Africa. One (apocryphal) story I came across is that Jimi Hendrix released a pair of these birds on Carnaby Street in the ‘60s and caused the population boom on the Heath. I was so tickled by the idea, but a bit more digging showed that it isn't true.</p><p>John’s line “‘Enjoyable companion’ makes me sound like a fucking dog” was something Martin Freeman said in an old cast interview. The cast was talking about what qualities of their characters they share, and Amanda said Martin is loyal, like John, and Martin responded with something along the lines of “Why does everything people say about me make me sound like a fucking dog?” It was very Martin, and somehow also John.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>+1</strong>
</p><p>The case is a quick and dirty one, lasting just a few hours.</p><p>After sparring with a violent librarian who’d plucked a child from his library’s weekly storytime circle and stored the girl--alive, at least--in his basement, John bullies Sherlock into the bathroom at 221b to doctor the shallow knife gash running a line up the top of Sherlock’s thigh. Sherlock perches atop the toilet lid in his pants and a t-shirt while John sits on his knees to clean and dress the wound.</p><p>The brush of John’s deft fingers against Sherlock’s bare skin is electrifying.</p><p>And the touch of John’s lips is still burned into his skin.</p><p>It’d been difficult to ignore.</p><p>He hadn’t allowed himself to look at John too closely since the Heath; he hadn't wanted to remember the feeling of John’s soft, strawberry jam-hinted lips too vividly; to recall his smell--sweet with fragrant sweat and sun cream.</p><p>They hadn’t spoken of it, having been too distracted by the case.</p><p>Sherlock does not want to entertain the idea that John regrets the kiss.</p><p>It could have been a test, of course. John could have been trying it on for size. Sherlock doesn't want to learn that it’d been mere curiosity, a flight of fancy, nothing more. John had only offered a small, tentative peck of lips, after all, and Sherlock had been the one to deepen it, to swallow him whole. Sherlock had been greedy.</p><p>But there is simply no earthly reason why they wouldn’t, at any point, talk about it.</p><p>Bandage applied, John moves to rest his hand on Sherlock’s knee and looks up, his eyes a fascinating shade of blue.</p><p>They look at each other for a stretch.</p><p>Sherlock bites the bullet. “You’ll want to talk about it, then.”</p><p>“Actually, I want to talk about something else first.” John tips his head at the bandage. “That? It should be a wake-up call. You need to be more careful.”</p><p>“Spare me the lecture.”</p><p>“No. Listen to me.” John’s voice is all military steel, and it commands Sherlock’s attention. “I know this one wasn’t bad. I know it’s basically a nick. But things--they’re different now.” John drops his eyes and stares, hard, at his hand on Sherlock’s knee. “When Rosie was born, I realised that I couldn’t just live--or not live--for myself anymore. I had someone to live for. Before her, I didn’t care. I’d throw myself in front of a bus or a bullet if you asked me to. I mean, Christ: I have done. And that was obviously reckless. But I <em>am</em> reckless. I don’t know how not to be. But I can’t be like that anymore; I have to try to not be like that.” He looks up at Sherlock again, entreating. “And so do you.”</p><p>“Watson's welfare hardly hinges on whether<em> I’m</em> dead or alive.”</p><p>John looks as if Sherlock had slapped him. “How could you say that? She loves you.”</p><p>“I am a third party in your and Watson's life. Acting <em>in loco parentis;</em> a stand-in, if you will. And I am immensely gratified to have been allowed such a role, but I am all too aware that you will soon find a mother for Watson. Or--,” it pains Sherlock to add, “a...father.”</p><p>John is stricken silent before he says, "Sherlock. Do you really still not get it?” He huffs out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re not a stand-in. You’ve never been a stand-in<em>.</em> You <em>do </em>recall what happened earlier?”</p><p>“You’ll need to be more specific. Earlier, you nearly killed a paparazzo, and--also earlier--I was nearly shivved.”</p><p>John gives him a withering look. “Okay. Earlier: when we had our tongues down each other’s throats. In public.”</p><p>“Ah, yes. That rings a bell.”</p><p>“Do you <em>want</em> to be Rosie’s father?” John asks suddenly.</p><p>The question is loaded, to say the least.</p><p>Sherlock would love nothing more than to be Rosie’s father. To be with John, and for them to be a family. But it is unclear if John is offering all of it. Life partnership; a relationship. </p><p>“Because I want you to be," John adds, because Sherlock may have gone quiet for too long.</p><p>A shocking, buoyant warmth has settled in Sherlock’s chest. “You want--you would like me to--”</p><p>“I know it’s a lot to ask--”</p><p>“Certainly not," Sherlock says, taking offence. "Not in the least. I want to; I would be honoured to.”</p><p>John looks troublingly misty-eyed. “Yeah?”</p><p>“Unequivocally.”</p><p>“Then, in that case, to be crystal clear,” John trips over himself to say before regrouping, slowing down his speech, “I need you to know that I want all of it. I want everything that implies. I want <em>you</em>. I kissed you because I thought, maybe, that you might want me too. But I know it’s not--it may not be what you want, it may not be what you really do, relationships, and I respect that. I can learn to live with you being Rosie’s parent and us--remaining as is. But I need you to know that, this?” He waves a hand between them. “It’s all I need. You. Rosie. I’m here for good. And if you don’t want--”</p><p>“I want everything you are willing to offer me.”</p><p>John looks at Sherlock like he is something marvelous.</p><p>And then he takes Sherlock’s hand by the wrist, peering up at Sherlock from beneath his lashes, and presses a tender kiss to Sherlock’s pulse point, which jumps at the contact.</p><p>Placing Sherlock’s hand aside, John raises himself onto his knees and situates himself between Sherlock’s legs. He braces both of his hands on Sherlock’s knees, looks up with a question on his face. “Can I--”</p><p>“Yes,” Sherlock says, because the answer will always be yes.</p><p>John slides both hands up the sides of Sherlock’s thighs, fingers combing through dark strands of hair, until the tips of his fingers meet the leg hem of Sherlock’s boxer-briefs. Sherlock watches raptly as John slips his index and middle-fingers beneath the elastic, and when John’s fingers tangle in coarse hair and nudge at Sherlock’s cock, Sherlock’s cock twitches enthusiastically, and his legs clamp tight on John, locking him in.</p><p>John slides out his fingers, looks up at Sherlock apologetically. “Sorry, I shouldn’t--”</p><p>“Whatever it is you think you shouldn’t do, what you should do is what you were already doing.”</p><p>John shakes his head. “We should take it slow.”</p><p>“Slow,” Sherlock repeats, dripping with derision. “Yes, perhaps we should wait another year, just to round off the decade?”</p><p>John is trying to fight a smile as his hands travel up further, making their ways under Sherlock’s shirt. “I really want--can I just touch you?”</p><p>Sherlock decides to make the experience a bit easier, pulling his t-shirt over his head and flinging it aside.</p><p>John’s eyes lock onto Sherlock’s chest, and he sits on his haunches to have a wider view in which to sup him up. “God, you’re stunning.”</p><p>Sherlock doesn’t know how he’s meant to respond to that, so he reaches for the top button of John’s shirt. “My turn.”</p><p>John grabs his wrist.</p><p>The soft admiration on his face has taken on a distinctly murderous bent because, based on their current configuration, he is confronted with the fading scar of Mary’s bullet wound at eye-level.</p><p>“It’s ancient history, John.”</p><p>“Sure,” John scathes, pushing himself up to his feet. “But I was just reminded of how many times I’ve nearly lost you. Bit of a mood killer, that.”</p><p>Sherlock grabs John’s hand, squeezes. “You won’t ever lose me. I can promise you that.”</p><p>John’s expression, pinched with unvarnished affection, tugs at Sherlock’s heartstrings.</p><p>With their hands already clasped, John helps hoist Sherlock to his feet, eyes falling to the bandage on Sherlock’s thigh. “All right?”</p><p>Sherlock nods. Because any pain is negligible, at the moment.</p><p>John leads him into the hallway, their hands still clasped, and comes to a halt, giving a cursory glance at the closed door of Sherlock’s bedroom before turning around so he can back Sherlock up against the wall. He places a hand on Sherlock’s neck, and Sherlock angles his head, dips down while John presses up.</p><p>It starts off as shallow kisses, then becomes headier, Sherlock sucking on John’s upper lip and insinuating his tongue into his mouth, causing John to make gorgeous, strangled noises. John pushes the length of his body against him, his torso solid and strong, and Sherlock traces the contours of his body--runs his hands down from John’s shoulders to his biceps, his waist, hips, arse, and back up, wrapping his arms around John’s neck. John’s hand skates over the crescent of Sherlock's waist and rests on a jutting hip bone, but only briefly, his hand finding its way into Sherlock’s pants and pulling out Sherlock’s cock.</p><p>Sherlock gasps into John’s mouth. “Very slow, indeed. This--it’s practically courtship.”</p><p>“Shut up,” John growls, pumping Sherlock’s cock feverishly. “Clearly, I’ve never had a good idea in my life.”</p><p>“<em>Finally</em>, you see things from my perspective.”</p><p>John laughs into Sherlock’s lips, which part as heat pools in the pit of Sherlock’s stomach; John is doing something genius with his thumb over Sherlock’s glans, then over his frenulum, and it takes all Sherlock can to find the cogency to undo John’s buttons, shoving the shirt off John’s shoulders and pressing both of his hands into John’s bare skin, hot as a furnace. Again, he coasts his hands over John’s arms and down his firm chest and stomach before sliding a hand beneath John’s shorts and pants to run his palm over John’s hardened cock.</p><p>“<em>Fucking Jesus,</em>” John says, rhapsodic. </p><p>Sherlock pulls John’s shorts and pants down--thick and flushed cock upstanding against his stomach--just enough to cradle John’s arse, and as he pulls at John’s cock, the idea of tasting John is too insistent to ignore, so Sherlock pushes John’s back against the wall and gets to his knees, his thigh lancing slightly at the aggravation.</p><p>Something must show on his face, because John is saying, “Sherlock, are you--”</p><p>Before John can finish his question, Sherlock slips his mouth over John’s cock, wrapping a fist around John’s shaft and working hand and mouth in tandem.</p><p>John curses, tipping his head back against the wall.</p><p>After a long day marinating in the heat, John tastes piquant with musk and sweat, and it’s <em>heaven</em>--Sherlock’s mouth floods with saliva and his lips slide over John with slickened ease. When he pulls off with a wet pop, stringy saliva tethers to John’s cock from his mouth, and he swallows it back up, pressing a kiss to the head before tonguing the side, then underside of John’s shaft, tracing up a bulging vein with the tip of his tongue on the way up, all while fondling John’s bollocks between his index finger and thumb.</p><p>John has his fingers fisted in Sherlock’s curls and is tugging, ever so slightly, as he makes all sorts of wonderful strangled noises and says Sherlock’s name like velvet and it’s this simplicity--hearing his name from John’s lips, woven with need, encouragement, pleasure--that is most exhilarating. Sherlock blurs his hand over his own cock, continuing to lavish John with his tongue, lapping up a pearl of pre-come, bitterness exploding in his mouth--</p><p>Until he hears the faint creak of the stairs.</p><p>Alarmed, he pops up his head and digs his fingers into John’s left hip. “Mrs Hudson. Twelve seconds.”</p><p>“<em>Fuck</em>.”</p><p>John helps wrench Sherlock to his feet before he’s clambering to tuck his leaking cock into his pants and to pull up his shorts, cursing inventively under his breath before sprinting into the bathroom. Sherlock flees for his bedroom, shouting, “Shirt!” over his shoulder as he flings open the door and dives onto his bed just as Mrs Hudson’s footsteps reach the landing. He hears John dart out into the hallway to grab his discarded shirt before hurrying back into the bathroom, pulling the door closed just in time for Mrs Hudson to step into their sitting room.</p><p>“Boys? Are you decent?” <em>Quite nearly not, for once,</em> Sherlock thinks bitterly, listening to John continue his stream of invectives from the bathroom. “Boys?”</p><p>“Just--just a second, Mrs H,” John calls back, sounding utterly wrecked.</p><p>“Are you okay, dear?”</p><p>“Fine,” John says, strained. “Just. Fantastic.”</p><p>Mrs Hudson’s silence is heavy with suspicion, as is her tone when she says, “Where’s Sherlock?”</p><p>Her footsteps are echoing down the hall toward them, so Sherlock flings himself off his bed and slams the door shut, lest Mrs Hudson take one step too far.</p><p>“Sherlock Holmes!” she chides. “What on earth’s going on here?”</p><p>“Good lord,” Sherlock says, wrestling himself into his dressing gown. “<em>Read the room</em>, woman.”</p><p>He makes a hasty knot of the dressing gown belt, throws open his door, and sweeps into the hallway just as John’s stomping out of the bathroom.</p><p>Naturally, they run right into each other.</p><p>“Shit!" John makes a reflexive grab for Sherlock's dressing gown. "Sorry.” He is holding a bunched up towel in his other hand, placed strategically in front of his groin. </p><p>Mrs Hudson’s hands fly to cover her eyes, squeaking out an, “Oh!”</p><p>Sherlock looks down to find that his dressing gown belt has come loose in the collision, John having tugged it out of its knot, giving everyone an eyeful of the bulge in his pants (made even more obvious by an off-centre dampened spot). His face flaring with heat, he makes a quick work of re-tying the belt, pulling it so taut that the band digs into his stomach.</p><p>“You’ve come to tell us that Watson is asleep,” Sherlock says snappishly. “Message received. Now,<em> go away</em>.”</p><p>Mrs Hudson peeks through the blinds of her fingers, slowly lowers her hands.</p><p>John clears his throat very loudly. “Um. Sorry. I was going to pop downstairs in a bit, was just taking a quick look at the--cleaning Sherlock’s wound.”</p><p>Mrs Hudson flicks her eyes from John, to John’s towel, then to Sherlock before her lips stretch into a smug, knowing smile. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”</p><p>John sighs raggedly and hangs his head. “Here we go.”</p><p>Mrs Hudson eyes settle on Sherlock. “Who hurt you, dear?”</p><p>Sherlock flicks a dismissive hand. “Vengeful librarian.”</p><p>Mrs Hudson tuts. “What a shame. You’d think that profession would only attract the salt of earth types.”</p><p>“<em>Mrs Hudson,</em>” John is saying at a booming volume, causing Mrs Hudson to slap a dramatic hand to her chest, so John dials it down, continues more soberly, “Sorry. I’m--sorry. Thank you. Again. For watching Rosie last minute. I can stop by in the morning to pick her up?”</p><p>Mrs Hudson recovers easily from John’s outburst. “Yes, that’s just fine.”</p><p>They all lapse into silence, but Mrs Hudson does not take the cue that the conversation is over. In fact, Sherlock is horrified to see that she looks to be on the verge of tears.</p><p>“Is this it, then?” she asks, voice quivering.</p><p>“Is this what?” John says, sounding exhausted.</p><p>Mrs Hudson waves a hand in the air. “You two. You’re….” she chokes off, pressing her fingertips to her lips, her eyes welling with tears.</p><p>“Well, not at the moment,” Sherlock says, unable to help himself. “Thanks to <em>you</em>.”</p><p>“Sherlock,” John says through his teeth.</p><p>Mrs Hudson claps her hands like a seal. “I can’t believe it! I was certain I’d be dead before you boys figured things out.”</p><p>“Mrs Hudson,” Sherlock says, scandalised by the notion of Mrs Hudson not being around.</p><p>Mrs Hudson is beaming. “Finally got your heads out of your arses!”</p><p>“That is <em>certainly </em>not--” Sherlock is saying huffily at the same time John says, “Yeah, pretty much.”</p><p>Sherlock snaps his mouth shut and shifts his eyes over to John, who is looking back at him with a disarming smile.</p><p>Sherlock will never tire of John’s smile, a rare and perfect gem.</p><p>They must remain in a besotted standoff for aeons, because Sherlock forgets Mrs Hudson is there only until she pipes up with a noise that sounds like a dying animal. “Oh, but just look at you two! I’d give you a big hug if I didn’t want naughty things poking at me.”</p><p>John’s smile falters, and Sherlock rolls his eyes.</p><p>“We’re never going to live this down, are we?” John says fatalistically.</p><p>“Not a chance,” Mrs Hudson says with good cheer. Then, with gravitas, “You boys deserve happiness, you know. After everything. What a horrible, horrible few years. And Rosie, sweet thing: she’s gained something in this, hasn’t she?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” John raises his eyes to Sherlock’s again, and they are sparkling with promise--and maybe, just <em>maybe</em>, something else. “I think she’s always had it.”</p><hr/><p>When John makes a muffled noise of wakefulness, Sherlock offers a silky “Good morning” before tightening an arm around John’s chest and hooking a leg over his thigh.</p><p>“Guess I’m never leaving this bed,” John murmurs, amused, voice husky with morning.</p><p>“Correct.”</p><p>Sherlock is hard, has been hard since he’d woken up, and now that John’s awake, something can be done about it. Seeking friction, Sherlock moves his hips in a small thrusting motion, cock sliding against the cleft of John’s arse.</p><p>“Yep, definitely a good morning.”</p><p>Sherlock presses a kiss behind John’s ear, nudges his nose into John’s hair, breathing in lavender and rosemary (Sherlock’s favourite shampoo, late-night shower), tracing his hand down John’s stomach and through the thatch of hair haloing his cock.</p><p>“How’s your--,” John bites off as Sherlock encircles his cock and slides his fist over his length, “--thigh?”</p><p>“Unimportant.”</p><p>John thrusts lazily into the ring of Sherlock’s fist, his cock growing fully plump in Sherlock’s hand, before he rolls onto his back, Sherlock wasting no time to follow, draping himself inartfully over John’s torso and burying his face into John’s neck, deciding he will stay there for as long as he is allowed.</p><p>John runs an exploratory hand up Sherlock’s body, tracing over the hill of his arse, the dip of his back, raking fingers through Sherlock’s mussed hair.</p><p>Their chests rise and fall against each other in one entwined breath, and Sherlock wishes it were possible to burrow into John’s skin, his bones, his cells.</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>Sherlock stills.</p><p>The words had been whispered into Sherlock’s hair, quiet and muffled. Too delicate and handspun to be loud.</p><p>Sherlock pushes himself up onto his elbow.</p><p>John looks attractively rumpled and soft beneath him, his eyes glimmering with meaning and truth unquelled, and it is a marvel that Sherlock could be loved this way, by this man. That Sherlock could be loved at all.</p><p>But then John says it again, running a hand down Sherlock’s chest with reverence: “You don’t even <em>know.</em> I love you so fucking much, Sherlock.”</p><p>And Sherlock may even believe it.</p><p>The back of his eyes prickling with welled emotion, Sherlock kisses John, speaks his heart against John’s lips, “You made me realise I was capable of falling in love.”</p><p>John presses up, deepening their kiss, and then their mouths begin to move in frenzied tandem, tongues lick along tongues, bullish breaths spurt out of noses, moans and groans, and Sherlock writhes on top of John’s body, clumsily finds their cocks and aligns them, begins to pump his hips.</p><p>John arches his back. “Yeah, come on. Fuck me, Sherlock.”</p><p>Sherlock bucks his hips harder while John scrabbles for Sherlock’s arse, squeezing the fleshiness there, but it’s not nearly enough; Sherlock wants more, wants to be <em>closer</em>, so he slows his thrusts to a lazy grind, lets them catch their breaths, traces a lax path with his lips from John’s cheek to ear and says, “I want you to fuck me again; want it slower.”</p><p>John had had Sherlock on his hands and knees last night, it’d been erratic and rough, and they had both come far too quickly.</p><p>“Yeah?” John says, breathy with want, grabbing at Sherlock’s arsecheeks and parting them, causing Sherlock’s breath to shudder. “Whatever you want. Anything you want.” John kneads Sherlock’s bum, hefts it. “God, I love your arse.”</p><p>It is imperative that Sherlock gets fucked in this very moment, so he rolls over to grab the lube off the sidetable, but before he can roll back, John reaches out and enfolds Sherlock in his arms, pulling Sherlock’s back to his chest.</p><p>Unfathomably, John does not seem as adamant about kickstarting the fucking as Sherlock does--though, Sherlock supposes <em>he’s</em> the one who’d articulated his desire take things slowly. Regardless, resistance is futile, and Sherlock melts into John’s sturdy embrace, drapes his arm across John’s where it is slung protectively over Sherlock’s torso.</p><p>It won’t be possible for Sherlock to ever fit so cosily in someone else’s arms. It is a certainty that he will never be so secure and serene anywhere but here.</p><p>They remain that way for some time, car horns and idle distant chatter of pedestrians filtering in through the open window. The standing fan hums, rustling Sherlock’s hair, drying the patina of perspiration from his skin.</p><p>John holds Sherlock like he will lose him if he lets go.</p><p>And while Sherlock enjoys the cuddling (a distinctly puerile word that he would never have used in reference to himself until this very moment), he is losing the battle with his patience, and his libido.</p><p>He pushes his arse back against John’s cock, squirms in John’s grip, his objective clear.</p><p>It does the trick.</p><p>Staying tucked behind Sherlock--with renewed urgency--John squeezes lube onto his fingers and slickens the rim of Sherlock’s arsehole, which flutters at that first touch, then sinks one, two fingers, pumping them in and out, separating his fingers inside, scissoring, and Sherlock is strung out on the languorous, unrushed nature of John’s movements, lets out indulgent <em>mms </em>of encouragement. Time passes in a syrupy lassitude during John’s ministrations, and, at some far off point, Sherlock feels an ever-so-slight burning stretch as John’s cockhead nudges past Sherlock’s tight ring of muscle, Sherlock’s body acclimatizing quickly to the intrusion.</p><p>“Oh, Jesus,” John groans as Sherlock’s body swallows him inch by inch, and when he’s fully seated, his pelvis flush to Sherlock’s arse, he kisses Sherlock’s shoulder blade and asks, “Okay?”</p><p>Sherlock nods, the sensation of John filling him rendering him incapable of speech. It’s rare for Sherlock to let go like this, to become an unspeaking, unthinking thing--but the quieting of his typically overworked mind is pure bliss.</p><p>And John--<em>he</em> is bliss.</p><p>John carefully begins to move his hips, nudging directly at Sherlock’s prostate; Sherlock’s mouth drops open and his eyes flicker closed. “That feels--” he breaks off, lets out a moan instead.</p><p>“Feels so good, <em>god</em>, you feel so good,” John says rapturously, and Sherlock rolls half onto his back and twists around to kiss him sloppily, panting into John’s mouth as John fucks him with slow, undulating thrusts.</p><p>Sherlock needs more, so he raises his leg, cups the back of his knee, and pulls inward toward his face to allow for a better stretch of his arsehole, making an uncouth <em>unhh </em>sound.</p><p>“You’re so fucking sexy like this,” John says in Sherlock’s ear, low and guttural, moving Sherlock’s arm out of the way to hook his own underneath Sherlock’s knee.</p><p>Sherlock's mouth hangs open uselessly as he wraps a hand around his cock and gives it a few strokes, knowing at once it's too much--he'll come much too fast--so he grabs a fistful of the bedsheet as a diversion.</p><p>While the angle is divine, John’s cock slips out twice, and when he pushes back in the second time, they soundlessly agree to manoeuver so that Sherlock is lying on his back, hips lifted, his legs in the air, while John settles on his knees between Sherlock’s legs, hands braced on either side of Sherlock’s head.</p><p>They watch each other with hooded, unwavering stares, Sherlock making gasping <em>ohs</em> in time with each of John’s rhythmic, precise pulses, smoothing his hands down John’s rippling back, tacky with a film of sweat.</p><p>John’s eyes flit over Sherlock’s face, and he licks his lips. “You like that, hm?” he asks, voice like butter, rolling his hips, tortuously slow. “Slow enough?”</p><p>“Mm,” Sherlock croons, somewhat close to the edge, suspended in a euphoric limbo.</p><p>But the push-and-pull feeling recedes when John stops moving, pressed against Sherlock’s arse to the hilt, and leans down to kiss Sherlock in an incongruously chaste way, considering the state of them, just a light press of lips on lips, and Sherlock wraps his legs around John's lower back.</p><p>It’s more intimate, in a way, having John simply nestled inside him, unmoving. Sherlock is able to savour his length and girth; it makes Sherlock feel so very full<em>, </em>makes him feel connected to John on another level.</p><p>It also turns Sherlock on to no end.</p><p>“Okay?” John asks.</p><p>“An understatement,” Sherlock says, clenching his arsehole around John’s cock experimentally, causing both of them to moan.</p><p>John kisses Sherlock fiercely, this time, pulling on Sherlock’s bottom lip with his teeth when they part. “You drive me mad.” His eyes skim wolfishly down Sherlock’s torso and up to his face. “Do you <em>know </em>how gorgeous you are?”</p><p>“You’re one to talk,” Sherlock says, running a hand up the musculature of John’s arm.</p><p>“It was all for you, in case you missed that.”</p><p>“Wholly unnecessary, though it was a remarkably distracting venture. I would have had you as long as you were you.”</p><p>“Wish you hadn’t acted like you wanted nothing to do with me sometimes.”</p><p>“<em>Tu quoque.</em>”</p><p>“...What?”</p><p>“‘And you as well.’ It’s Latin.”</p><p>John giggles, and Sherlock can feel its vibration in his core. “Only <em>you </em>would speak Latin while I’ve got my cock up your arse.”</p><p>“Stop giggling," Sherlock says straight-faced. "You can’t giggle with your cock up my arse.”</p><p>But John just giggles harder, and he kisses Sherlock, and then they’re both laughing against each others’s lips.</p><p>John presses a kiss to Sherlock’s jaw. “Still a bit unbelievable, this. Us. Wanted it for so long. And we're finally here."</p><p>Sherlock lets out a long, dramatic sigh. "Thank <em>fuck</em>."</p><p>John snorts. "Could never, for the bloody life of me, tell if it was what you wanted too, and I didn’t want to take a chance to find out.”</p><p>Sherlock circles his hips, grinding on John’s cock, and moves his legs down, hooking his ankles behind John’s thighs and digging in. “Oh, I <em>wanted</em>,” he purrs.</p><p>John’s eyes go dark and hungry, and then he’s withdrawing his cock and shoving back in roughly, jerking Sherlock backwards. “That what you wanted?”</p><p>“Do it again," Sherlock says breathily.</p><p>John does it again. And again.</p><p>It is agonisingly slow, and something breaks in Sherlock as he is overcome with the base need to be fucked into oblivion.</p><p>“Need it faster,” Sherlock bites out. “<em>Now</em>.”</p><p>John obliges, builds up speed until he’s pistoning into Sherlock relentlessly, hard enough for his bollocks to slap against Sherlock’s arse, for Sherlock’s cock to smack against his stomach.</p><p>Making little bitten-off noises, Sherlock lifts and spreads his legs wide in the air, throws his neck back, submits himself. “Oh, <em>god</em>,” he howls, unbidden.</p><p>“Fuck, yeah, god, that’s--Jesus--fuck,” John babbles.</p><p>"God--oh, god, <em>make me come."</em></p><p>"Yeah," John grits out, "I'll make you come."</p><p>With a sharpshooter's focus, John slides and locks his arms beneath Sherlock’s neck, and Sherlock wraps his arms around John’s shoulders as John continues to pound into him with abandon, and Sherlock bites down at his bottom lip to stop from crying out again--his body is screaming for him to come, so he wraps his hand around his cock, and with John grunting filthily in his ear, white-hot pleasure roils in Sherlock’s core and coils upward through his body and disperses, making him flush, scorching him from head to toe, his mind going static-quiet, and then Sherlock is coming with a dizzying, thunderous intensity, John following shortly thereafter.</p><p>After catching their breaths, unsticking themselves from a messy tangle of limbs and effluvia, John gives them both a perfunctory wipe-down with a flannel, saying, in wonder, "That was somehow even better than last night, and last night was incredible. Wasn’t sure it could be topped.”</p><p>“I was confident it could be topped. And topped again. And by ‘it’ I mean me.”</p><p>John barks out a laugh. “You’re really giving me mixed signals, here.” </p><p>Sherlock breaks into a wry smirk, rolling over--John’s ejaculate trickling out of his arse and over his thigh, onto the bed, much to his satisfaction--and presses into John’s side, feathering his fingertips down John’s chest.</p><p>John chases after Sherlock’s hand, interlaces their fingers.</p><p>"Oh, sorry." With John's other hand, he picks up the flannel again, gestures at Sherlock's arse with it. "Did you want to--or I can...?"</p><p>"No," Sherlock says, defiant. </p><p>John looks at him for a moment, expression turning positively lecherous, and he licks his lips, throws the flannel aside. Crooks a finger at Sherlock. "C'mere."</p><p>Sherlock obeys, and John gives him a bruising kiss.</p><p>"Never wanted someone as much as I want you," John says sleepily, as if drunk off their kiss, and something in Sherlock's stomach somersaults and flutters.</p><p>While the concept of John wanting him is so new--so foreign and mind-boggling--he could really, truly, get used to it.</p><p>"I'm yours; with bells on."</p><p>John slides a hand leisurely over Sherlock's hip and down the cleft of his arse to sink a finger inside him, draw out, and paint a streak of come across the swell of his arsecheek. </p><p>Sherlock hums contentedly and gives John a peck on the lips. And another. And one more, while John’s smiling.</p><p>“Oh, hell,” John says after the fourth peck. “What time is it?” He sits up, wipes his hand on his chest. “We’ve got to get Rosie; Mrs H will think I’ve forgotten I have a daughter.”</p><p>He snatches his mobile off the sidetable, activates the lockscreen, and whatever he sees causes him to sit fully upright. He pokes and swipes at the screen frantically, his eyebrows crawling up to his hairline.</p><p>A minute passes in this manner, John displaying a frankly impressive slideshow of emotions on his face, and the mystery of it is too intriguing for Sherlock to resist. “What is it?”</p><p>Silent with resignation, John passes over his mobile to Sherlock.</p><p>Sherlock flips the mobile around and reads the opened article’s headline.</p><p>
  <strong>CRIME-FIGHTING DUO HOLMES AND WATSON GO UNDERCOVER, WITH TONGUES</strong>
</p><p>Beneath the headline are two shoddy mobile photos from yesterday’s jaunt on the Heath: one of Sherlock, John, and Rosie picnicking, and one of two human-shaped mounds beneath a blanket (with no doubt as to the identity of the mounds).</p><p>“Oops,” Sherlock says dryly.</p><p>“Check out the group chat,” John says, long-suffering. “Twenty-eight somehow <em>very loud</em> texts from Molly and Greg.”</p><p>Sherlock pulls a face. “Ugh. I’d rather not.”</p><p>He locks John’s mobile and places it atop the sidetable on his flank of the bed, next to his own mobile, which is lighting up with reams of texts from <em>Mummy </em>and <em>The Queen. </em></p><p>Sherlock would rather die the most painful of deaths than talk to his mother and Mycroft about this.</p><p>“I’m trying to find this funny,” John says. “Because it should be, shouldn’t it? If this had happened to anyone else, it’d be a laugh.”</p><p>Sherlock flops back onto the bed, pouting. “Have people nothing else going on in their sad little lives and sad little minds? Why do they care so much?”</p><p>John sighs hugely. “Guess I’ll need to write up a blog post, an official statement or whatever, so people’ll shut up.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t be so optimistic.”</p><p>“Rosie’s going to see that photo one day,” John says in dawning horror.</p><p>“Good thing it isn’t pornographic.”</p><p>“It’s embarrassing, Sherlock. Her parents, snogging like randy teenagers for all and sundry.”</p><p>
  <em>Her parents.</em>
</p><p>It’d been said so casually.</p><p>Said as if the fact had existed from time immemorial.</p><p>Sherlock’s expression must betray him, because John leans over to kiss him with confidence, lifts his face, their noses a hair's-breadth apart, and looks directly into Sherlock’s eyes. “Her parents.”</p><p>“You were right,” Sherlock says in a rush.</p><p>John blinks off the whiplash. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say those words, in that order. But what exactly was I right about?”</p><p>“It isn’t in my nature to play it safe. My ego has often got the better of me, has made me do unspeakable things. Stupid things; dangerous things. I was almost certain I would be dead by the age of thirty.” John furrows his brows, pained and bemused, so Sherlock quickly continues, “For many years, all I had for company was my intellect, and I can’t imagine living without it, obviously, but I’d have never been able to live on it, alone. It would have destroyed me. I would not have stepped out of my provincial self-obsession if I hadn’t met you. I wouldn’t have realised that there are so many rich layers to this existence; that the concrete, the logical, can coexist with the abstract, the emotional, and create something larger than life. Since I met you and came to know you, I was determined to live to the greatest limitations of biology, to its farthest stretches, if it meant I could spend more time with you. And, now that you’ve given me Rosie, I wish to transcend biology.”</p><p>John is staring at him, his eyes unmistakably watery.</p><p>Feeling awkward, Sherlock begins to backpedal, “That is, I mean--”</p><p>“No, it’s—that was—Jesus.” John scrubs a hand over his eyes, making them more pinkened and raw. “And you’re always on about <em>me </em>being a romantic.” He pitches his voice into a low, mocking rumble, “<em>‘Cut out the poetry,</em> <em>John</em>.’”</p><p>Sherlock bristles. “I do <em>not </em>sound like that.”</p><p>John strokes Sherlock’s hair. “You big bloody softie.”</p><p>Sherlock turns his back to John, curling into a foetal position, and purses his lips stroppily.</p><p>John climbs over Sherlock and lies down so they’re face to face, kisses the petulant moue off Sherlock’s lips. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to be flippant. I’m just not good at this sort of stuff. That was--beautiful, really. I don’t know what to say to match it, but, for the record: I feel the same. I really, <em>really </em>do. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you; and with Rosie.”</p><p>Bursting with lightness and brightness from within, Sherlock kisses him.</p><p>“Speaking of,” John says when they pull apart, smiling beatifically. “Shower, first--then let’s get our daughter.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This was my first 5+1 fic, and the longest fic I've ever written; it was a constant companion for the past several months. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. :))</p><p>(Also, final reference: Holmes did say “Cut out the poetry, Watson” in "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman.")</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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